Really old blog posts:

Waste Not, Want Not

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven..Pete Seeger

I have been watching old episodes of Life Below Zero on Netflix this winter. One of the lessons that becomes clear as I watch is that when you are living a subsistence living near the Arctic Circle, absolutely nothing is wasted. It is a great lesson as figures suggest that the human population creates 2.12 billion tons of waste every year. That is a lot of stuff!

I resolved a while back to focus on using the stash of fabrics that I have accumulated over the years in my projects whenever possible. I still will purchase a special fabric here and there, but mainly I try to use my stash. My latest quilt for Quilts Beyond Borders is a perfect example of this.

I found a simple yet attractive pattern for a daisy chain quilt on Pinterest and was able find enough prints and solids in my stash to create both the top and back of a quilt that will go to a person in need. (Sorry about the poor photo of the quilt back but you get the idea. 🙂 )

Quilt front

Quilt Back

However, that was not the end of my Waste Not, Want Not story. To create the quilt, one had to slice off areas at the top and bottom as the quilt was assembled in angular strips. As I created my rectangular quilt, I created a little pile of odd shapes. I put them aside for a few days and then took them all out. There were enough scraps to be able to create a 15″ x 18″ quilt for one of my grandchild’s dolls!

Mini quilt

Now not only will someone somewhere in the world with no home benefit from my stash, but I have created joy for a child and avoided adding a small bit to that 2.12 billion figure.

I will leave you with one more statistic from that website on waste – it is suggested that 99% of things we buy are trashed within 6 months. Yuk! Hopefully, we all can do better than that!